


Witchkeeper

by Servena



Series: Witch!Gene [1]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Captivity, Developing Relationship, Gen, Magic, Magic-Users, Mute!Gene, Muteness, Past Abuse, Planning to kill someone, Slavery, Witchcraft, Witches, Witchkeeper!Babe, witch!eugene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 08:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19902526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Servena/pseuds/Servena
Summary: Killing a human being is really not that hard. He has taken to counting the opportunities in his head.





	Witchkeeper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miss_grey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_grey/gifts).
  * Inspired by [All for Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14998085) by [tinallie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinallie/pseuds/tinallie). 



Killing a human being is really not that hard. Humans are fragile creatures, just skin and flesh and brittle, brittle bones. Little more than animals, with no way to anticipate what will happen to them, no magic to protect them.

He has taken to counting the opportunities in his head.

One. Make the horse shy that’s pulling the apple cart. All it takes is the right position in the right moment as they’re crossing the street. One hit from one of those big hooves could kill a man.

Two. Nudge the scaffolding that’s been erected to rebuild a burnt-out church. It wouldn’t require much force, he can feel how instable it is. And a witch walks behind its master all the time.

Three. Undo the rope on a poorly secured bridge just as his master has set foot on the wooden planks. (Risky, since if he were to fall as well, the chains around his feet would make sure he’d drown. But the thought crosses his mind anyway.)

He can feel the itch in his fingers, the desire to close them around an invisible neck, the energy running through every fiber of his being straining to _do something_.

They key is to use as little magic as possible, since the binding bracelets around his wrists make anything that requires more energy unfeasible. It also can’t affect his master directly, since no witchkeeper is that stupid to be unprotected. But it’s something to keep him occupied, to work out his chances – what’d be the challenge in snapping a man’s neck magically anyway?

They also might not figure out it was him. But if he’s honest to himself, in the end they always do. When a witchkeeper is killed under suspicious circumstances with the witch itself completely unscathed, it was always the witch. Even if it wasn’t. So better it was truly him than to be punished for his master taking an unfortunate fall all by himself.

He's done it before. Oh, it brings him nothing but pain and misery, so he should really weigh the risks carefully, but there's something so maddening about being chained that it clouds his judgement until there's nothing left but rage, until he lashes out like the caged animal he is.

That's when people die. That's when he's beat within an inch of his life, only to be sold again for an amount of gold that shrinks every time. One day there'll be nothing left and he’ll swing from the gallows like all the rest.

But he’ll do it again.

The boy’ll make it easy, too. He's the wrong kind to be a witchkeeper, too open, too trusting, too kind. Oh, he's scared at first, alright. He's careful. He keeps his distance and makes sure the bracelets are secured tightly after each job. But as time goes on, restrictions are eased.

The sting collar goes first, no matter what the others will tell him. (“What kind o’ witchkeeper d’you think you are, lad? Y’gotta teach them not t’disobey you. Gotta punish ‘em like a dog ‘til they do yer bidding.” The boy had just looked at them with thinly-veiled disgust, and had, once his back was turned, muttered: “I’d not even treat a dog like that.”)

It makes breathing easier, and his shoulders don’t hurt quite so much. But most of all he doesn’t have to fear the pain each time his master looks at him critically. Sure, he can still be hit, but that’d be half as bad. And the boy never does.

The shackles on his feet go next, so he can walk normally after ages of shuffling around. No more drowning, he thinks to himself. But the possibility to run if he can, if he has to.

And finally, one of the binding bracelets around his wrists is not refastened after the job is done. He sees the boy hesitate for a moment before putting it in his pocket instead. “Don’t make me regret this”, he mutters before turning away.

One hand is not enough for bigger spells, but it’s enough to push a door shut behind him, to catch an apple in the air that the boy tosses him. The feeling of relief is indescribable. He feels whole for the first time in years.

Only a single chain remains that connects them at the wrists, with enough slack to move comfortably, but reinforced in a way that even magic could not break it. And of course the boy is still armed with weapons that will bring the most powerful witch to its knees. Still, his chances have risen exponentially. And a chain is much easier to remove after one of the occupants is dead.

But time goes on, spring slowly turns into summer, and the boy still isn’t dead. Instead he has started to talk to him more, maybe not quite like you would talk to a human being since that would require him to answer occasionally, but the way some people talk to their horse or a good dog, just anything and everything. "Did you see the clouds in the east? I hope we don't walk into a storm. Maybe we should wait it out, but then we'll be late. What do you think?"

And he gives him choices, so many that he doesn't know what to do with them at first. If the job goes well, he gets to pick his own reward, some food or a new piece of clothing to replace the rags he's worn. And after a month of good earnings, he gets to pick a horse.

They still don’t have much money (well, in truth none of the money they earn belongs to him, but still), so the horses they buy are run-down and lame, but all it takes is some care and a skillful spell until they’re decent travel companions.

It also requires the chain to be removed. Instead, he gets an anklet infused with a spell that allows him more freedom to move. (“50 feet*”, the vendor tells the boy. “That’s what he gets. He’ll know when he’s close, and he won’t like what he finds if he crosses it. But it’s risky business, that. You sure you want it to be that slack?” “Yes”, the boy had said and slapped some coins down in front of his nose.)

When they reach the crossing out of town, the boy stops his horse. “Left or right, what do you think?”

Before, this could have been nothing but a trick question. Whichever way he’d chosen would have been the wrong one, and he’d have been severely punished.

He hesitates for a moment. Then he wordlessly nudges his horse towards the path to the east.

“Alright then”, the boy says cheerfully, and turns his horse to follow.

After that, he stops counting.

The boy is called Heffron, but his friends call him Babe, and he’s got many of those. Heffron with the fair skin and the shock of red hair. Heffron, who looks as far from a witchkeeper as possible. Heffron, who bought a broken witch with the last of his money.

“He don’t talk no more, you know”, the stand owner had told him. “No incantations for big spells.”

He’d just dumped the whole content of his purse on the table and said “He’ll do.”

He could try to run away. Maybe, with enough time to work away at it, he could crack the anklet. But there’s not many places to hide when you’re marked as a witch, and only a matter of time before he’d be caught again like all the others.

He know this will be as good as it ever gets. No one will ever treat him like this again. But the deep, deep truth is that he doesn’t want to hurt the boy because he likes him. On the contrary, he’d kill anyone who’d dare to touch him.

Maybe he's the right kind of witchkeeper after all.


End file.
